The thermal oxidation of silicon is a vital process in the fabrication of semiconductor devices. A great deal of effort has been expended in characterizing the process and understanding the results.
Current processes for thin gate oxide growth involve high temperature oxidation that tends to diffuse the channel implant away from the channel. To compensate for this diffusion, higher channel implant doses are required to maintain reasonable threshold voltages, as well as subthreshold leakage.
Higher channel doses also effect the N+ junction under the gate edges, resulting in higher e-field, as well as leakage mechanism thus raising the question of device reliability.